FolderTeint: darkness for your desktop

When it comes to my desktop and the icons that sit upon it, I have a fondness for darkness. It's not because of a fatalistic world view or any gothic tendencies on my part, I simply like my work to pop out against a non-distracting background. The black desktop is easy, but I've been looking for a fast and easy way to darken my icons without a lot of bells and whistles. And then I stumbled upon FolderTeint.

FolderTeint is free and Leopard-only. Using its slick interface, you can select which folders to affect and apply different effects to each selected set. The simplicity of the interface is what I like the most. The adjustment HUD only allows you to change the contrast, saturation and brightness of the icons, with an optional overlay color for hue control. It's perfect for making your system folder icons a nice, dark shade of grey. But to answer the question before it's asked: yes, it's also simple to make every folder a different shade of hot pink. Fortunately for those who regret their iconic 80s tribute later, you're always a click (and a logout) away from restoring the stock icons.

FolderTeint is free to download and use, but I'm certain that author Thomas Zoechling would gladly accept some PayPal love.

Update: Please read the comments carefully before downloading. While I've had great success with changing and reverting icons on a MacBook Pro running 10.5.1, not everyone has had such luck. Also be sure to note the author's response in the comments!